Insert readers for magnetic stripe- bearing cards are in wide spread commercial use. One on-going problem with such readers is that it is difficult to align the magnetic stripe with the read head, any misalignment resulting in a loss of signal and thus a relatively high level of errors. Even a slight misalignment causes a significant loss of signal, a one percent misalignment resulting in a forty percent loss in signal amplitude.
A variety of attempts have been made to correct such a problem. One such attempt was to attach a bezel to the front of the reader to provide an extended track to align the card bearing the magnetic track. The bezel included a spring which biased one edge of the card against a bearing surface aligned with the read head. Although improvements were realized with the use of such a bezel, the approach was expensive, misalignment occured between the track in the bezel and the track in the reader and errors due to "azimuth" misalignment still occured.